The former Alameda Naval Air Station, following base closure and after all the citizen input to committees and commissions, "Alameda Point," which makes up one third of the island land mass, has been the subject now of discussion and controversy for almost 20 years, with no substantive action.

I've served on several of those supposed community discussion and determination groups, from "Marketing" to "Negotiations," and I've never seen any of our mildest dreams come true. The city leaders go on ahead and make it up as they go along, contracting with one developer after another to try and make sense of all that open land in a way that might profit city coffers, if nothing else.

And as someone who has worked closely with some of Alameda's most successful developers — Ron Cowan, Aidan Barry and Rich Sherratt — I know whereof I speak when I say that the citizens of Alameda can get a better deal than the one that's on the table now. All the city leaders have ever done is to imagine, "How can we get the best possible development outcome for ourselves?" — whether their best-laid plans benefit Alameda residents or not.

Latest word is that the U.S. Navy, fed up with the city's machinations, has decided to transfer as much of the property as possible to sibling federal agencies, such as the Veterans Administra-tion, which might build a hospital out there. Likewise, the company now invested with the development contract, SunCal, finds itself in dire straits and has stopped development of, among many other projects in and out of California, the Oakland property formerly occupied as the Oak Knoll Base.

So let's just take a fresh look at all of this. It occurred to me about a year ago, after so many years of pondering it in my heart, that all that land could merely be left fallow as open space. Let the Wilderness Society look after it, and the ground squirrels, the egrets and the swans.

The essence of the Public Land Trust proposal, offered by Arthur and Gretchen Lipow, is for something similar to the Presidio Project in San Francisco: "We want an ecologically sound development that serves the public with open spaces, wetlands, schools, recreation areas, research parks that are partnered with educational institutions, and light industry that could be served by the existing deep water port. In other words, we want to build on what we already have at Alameda Point: a state of the art film studio, wine and spirits tasting rooms, warehouses and other businesses that currently produce $10 million to $12 million in annual lease income for Alameda." A Public Land Trust would also protect and preserve current housing consortiums, such as the Alameda Collaborative.

A Public Land Trust would not support current proposed dense residential housing (that does comply with Measure A density limits) and commercial/retail plans, for which there is no market. SunCal's proposal calls for $700 million dollars of taxpayer subsidized bonded indebtedness to subsidize new infrastructure at Alameda Point, but does not guarantee that any of the proposed "neighborhoods" will be built, because SunCal does not do that sort of development. The proposed neighborhoods would guarantee a huge traffic problem, producing a large carbon footprint and further jeopardizing our air quality. Meanwhile any income in that district is siphoned off into the redevelopment agency's budget, not into the city's General Fund budget. This negatively impacts our public services, include fire and police protection.

If you are interested in this proposal for a Public Land Trust for Alameda Point, contact Gretchen and Arthur Lipow at But, more importantly, you need to make your voice heard at City Hall during the City Council Meeting on Jan. 7. You need to say no to this current proposal for Alameda Point, and ask your elected officials to terminate further negotiations with SunCal/D.E. Shaw.

Dennis Green is an Alameda resident and writer.